I often write pieces on here about obscure or forgotten  figures but usually when I say  something like “very little is known about their life” there is actually just about enough information to construct a mini-biography before  looking at their work or significance.  Today’s subject is the exception to that rule, so when I say very little is known about William Wrighte I really mean it.

In fact, one of the striking things about him is how obscure he remains despite the efforts  of several historians to track him down.

What we do know is that he described himself as an architect and he published one book: Grotesque Architecture, or Rural Amusement in 1767 which also had a couple of later editions, but there’s no other  trace of him, his life or any of his architectural work.

Grotesque Architecture, or Rural Amusement is a fascinating book containing 28 different designs for garden buildings and landscape features—covering everything from hermitages, grottos, and cascades, to rustic seats, pavilions, and even mosques.   Many of these ornamental structures are fanciful to say  the least, but they are all extremely well drawn and engraved, and far more elaborate and detailed than almost any of the illustrations in rival architectural books.

The mid-18thc was a time when magazines and journals first began to announce new publications and even sometimes offer a review, but I can’t find any trace of contemporary reviews or descriptions of Grotesque Architecture.   The book was advertised as being republished in March 1788 for 4s6d, – although the next printed edition I can find is dated 1790. [This is the edition I have used for the illustrations as the only on-line copy of the 1767 edition is almost illegible].  A third edition  appeared in 18o2 , and a fourth in 1815 using the same plates and text but again I can find no trace of either of them being reviewed.

Let’s take a look at Wrighte’s designs starting with the frontispiece. This is a visual summation of the mid-18th century’s growing obsession with the rustic and the exotic, and makes him the first to publish such a scene in a book of architectural designs–showing specific designs set into natural surroundings in a consciously artful way.

In the centre are two figures, perhaps Wrighte with a plan or book in his hand and a prospective client. They’re standing in a landscape that could well be described as “picturesque” in the sense later meant by Payne Knight and Uvedale price.

The terrain is hilly and the surfaces rough and uneven, with steep-sided  slopes, rather gaunt trees, and a “natural” rather than formal pond. In the foreground on one side is a rustic hut covered in creepers while on the other are two men working digging a pit and removing the soil.  Behind them an even more shanty-like hut and just outside two figures, one balding and bearded rather hermit-like carrying a cross, and standing next to him a robed and turbaned figure perhaps Turkish in style. Further away in the mid-distance another robed and turbaned figure is clambering up the hills heading towards a mosque with four be-flagged minarets. Finally even further away is an arched  ruin.

The first couple of designs inside are for simple rustic huts. One was to be built with “trunks of trees and irregular timber” and then thatched and the interior lined with moss.

It may only have been basic but following classical rules it was built  to “represent the primitive state of the Dorick Order.”.   It was designed “to be placed at the entrance of a wood, or on the top of a small eminence.”

 

 

The second hut was ten foot square and again”composed of roots and irregular branches of trees” this time “cemented together with a strong binding clay,” and then either thatched  or “covered with branches of trees twined round with ivy.” This hut was more than just a hut being described as “an hermetic retreat” and shelters and homes for hermits comprise  the next group of designs.

They started simple but Wrighte obviously thought that some hermits – or rather the would-be sponsors/employers of hermits – would prefer something a little more elaborate. Although small – the third design is a Hermits Cell only 8ft square inside -which he suggested be  “situated in a rising wood near some running water,” and should be built “partly of large stones and trunks of trees, set round with ivy, and lined with rushes” and then thatched. Taking no account of the comfort of any potential resident the floor should be “paved with small pebble stones or cockle shells” while “The seats attached are intended to be composed of large irregular stones, roots of trees, &c.”

 

There are five more hermitages all using much the same sort of materials but all differing in finish and ornamentation.  One, “in the eastern style”, echoes the more exotic figures in the frontispiece. Built around a tree which supports the roof  it was to have an Arabic inscription over the door, be lit from lanterns and be thatched “in the Chinese taste” in that Wrighte may well be  imitating William Halfpenny’s design for a thatched Chinese Temple.  Making sure he covered all tastes one of the side seats was to be composed of large rough stones and the other of the “roots of pollard trees cemented together”.

 

It’s clear that the term “hermitage” was not to be taken too literally,  but as a fashionable term for any form of garden shelter because the one above was described as “a retirement from hunting, fowling, or any other winter amusement” and was to be lined with wool.

Meanwhile a “summer hermitage”  was for placing in “a wilderness or thick wood; the walls to be composed of large stones, and the ends faced with flints; the roof covered with thatch, and an owl carved on the top.” Again comfort was obviously not that important because “the floor should be paved with sheeps marrow-bones placed upright, or any other pretty device intermixed with them.”

Wrighte’s now allowed himself a little flight of fancy with yet another hermitage this time in  “the Augustine style”. The front is ornamented with a portico of palm trees with a skull in the pediment.   “Passages of evergreens” with niches for seats lead to the two thatched “circular retreats, one of which is intended as a library, and the other a bath.”

Wrighte tells readers “this design is calculated to be built on a small verdant amphitheatre, near a murmuring stream, and as a proper retreat from the fatigues of a sultry day.”

 

 

From hermitages Wrighte now moves to a series of designs for grottoes,  a good excuse to go over the top and let his imagination run riot.  The first is in “a modern architectonic style”. [I had to look that up…it means something that relates to the principles of architecture, or, more broadly, to anything structured, organized, and unified in a highly complex manner and was a term invented by John Evelyn in 1645] There was  a small pool inside  “ornamented with jet d’eaux, sea weeds, looking-glass, fountains and other grotesque decorations.”

The next is Gothic – although not the sort of Gothic most of us would recognize. Built of flint and stones  and again highly “ornamented with shells, ores, &c.”- almost like a child decorating a cake, or the witches house from Hansel and Gretel,  “if built upon an eminence, it would have a very pleasing appearance”.

Not big enough for your chosen spot in the garden? Then why not build this gigantic version three times the size.

 

The central section was “a saloon 20 feet square” with “grotefque statues or vases ” in the corners and  a fountain in the centre, “with antique figures spouting out water; the walls should be lined with flints, decorated with ice- work; the whole is lighted from the gazebo on the top.”  Although the two wings look identical one was “to be ornamented with curious shells, gems, coral, &c. with statues in the niches”….

… while the other was to have groins  incrusted with frosted work, in the manner of dropping icicles…in the Gothic manner, with a pier in the centre,” and was to be lined with flints, intermixed with shells, looking- glass, etc.   Between the saloon and the wings were two cascades to be fed for a nearby spring or stream The outfide to be compofed of rough ftoncs incrufted and ftudded with pebbles, shells, etc , There are placed in the receffes Gothic figures”. It was designed for a “retired copse, shaded by an adjacent hill, near fame murmuring rivulet, where the cafcades, or rather fountains, as in the defign, may be eafily effected”.

But if you thought that was outrageous how about this 75 foot long “open Chinese grotto, to be placed at the head of a grand canal, with a bath (A), and a Chinese temple (B), attached.”  Its “arcades to be ice or frosted work; the outside of the bath and temple to be ornamented with beautiful shells in the Mosaic taste; the inside to be groined over, as on the plan, and ornamented with shell-work and other beautiful incrustations.”

The final grotto is described as “Rural” and was designed to be built in “a morass, near some water”.  It should  built of large rough stones rudely put together, so that the building may as near as possible imitate the beautiful appearance of nature. If the dome was to be richly ornamented with pendentive shell and frosted work, it would look very elegant.  Unlike the others there seem to be no internal rooms instead the face was decorated with statues including “Neptune on a rock, pouring out water” and “satyrs and other grotesque figures”.

Next come a group of designs for cascades,  usually highly ornate with “rock-work, rude and irregular flints, sea lions pouring out fountains of water or tritons”. They were designed to ” have a very magnificent appearance, and look extremely elegant” and be “a superb ornament in a nobleman’s park where there is a great supply of water.”

Wrighte may have had specific clients in mind with some his designs because he says of the Grotto, Canal and Cascade above  that “he hath with great pleasure seen a fine piece of water in the park of the Earl of Essex, at Cassiobury near Watford, Herts; and flatters himself that if the arch in this design, on which the triton is placed, was to be executed there in the nature of a bridge, it would have a very magnificent and pleasing appearance.”

The watery theme continued with “a grotesque or rural bath, very proper to be built in gardens, &c. for the benefit of bathing. It is intended to have three feats within, by way of closets, for the conveniency of dressing and undressing.” But of course “If the water in the plan be left out, it will look very pleasing as a rural hut.”

And the final group of buildings are mosques, showing the 18th centuries fascination with at least the outward appearance of Ottoman architecture. Wrighte adds a note suggesting that for “a more intelligible and hiftorical account of thefe buildings, I mult refer the reader to Dr. Shaw’s Account of Barbary,  Le Brun  [Voyage au Levant] and Tourneforts Voyage to the Levant, &c.”

In fact although they are well illustrated two have no illustrations of mosques and the third, by Le Brun only has them  in topographical drawings of towns, [see left] so it’s still not clear where he got his visual inspiration from.

Only twenty feet in diameter, the circular mosque above has four separate small “cabinets” two of which were entrances with a small pool and fountain, while the other two were for “study”.  The four minarets and the mosque itself were to be “crowned with domes” and gilded. The central dome had a balustrade walkway round it,  which may be painted blue, and gilt” and also supported “a chandelier to light the inside when required.”

This rural mosque had an octagonal saloon, supported by eight columns, with minarets “decorated with Arabic inscriptions…to shew the true taste of the Turkish buildings.” It was to be built of wood and then stuccoed  but the inside “should be painted with various rich colours”.  Look closely at the dome and you’ll see it is “supported by irregular branches of trees, well connected and “cramped together” confirming its transfer from Islamic to Rustic Georgian.

“The Angularity of the style of architecture is such, that will render it a very pleasing ornament, if executed in a pleasure ground, or upon an elevated verdant amphitheatre.”

While described as “Turkish” this mosque has “a portico of four columns, in the oriental style … but covered with three little domes, in the Turkish manner, ornamented with crescents.”  The niches in the front have Arabic inscriptions in gold letters….It would look very beautiful if built on an open lawn, planted round with a few cypress or other exotic trees.

More complex is a small “Moresque” temple “with  coupled columns supporting  an arcade of intersecting semi-ellipses, which goes quite round the temple. In the spandrells are Moors heads, with crescents, roses, and stars, over which is a parapet balustrade of net or lattice-work.”

Then to really make it exotic it is topped with  a pineapple, which should be “double gilt”  and if the whole “outside was covered with a glossy substance, it would have a very pleasing and magnificent appearance.

Wrighte then at  this point finally admits that this style of architecture has been  invented.  They are he says “a medium between the Chinese and Gothic, having neither the levity of the former nor the gravity of the latter.”

 

This pavilion “in the style of the ancient Moors”, had ” Moors heads and festoons” over its arches and ” a circular or geometrical stair-case, leading to the top, or balustrade.”  The cupola was square and “mounted with a Moresque standard.”  It should be “built on an eminence to command an extensive view.”

Both the  Moresque Temple and Pavilion “are taken from those famous remains of Barbarian antiquity, the palace of Alhambra, at Granada, the ancient Moresque mosque at at Cordova, the old cassavee or palace of the Moorish kings at Mequanez  [modern day Meknes] ; for the accounts of which the reader is referred to Willughbuys Travels into Spain, Ocleys Account of South West Barbary, and Shaw’s Travels to the Levant. Once again, however,  there are no relevant illustrations. .

The final engraving – of a greenhouse –  is not really connected with the others, except that it is equally ornate and ever so slightly bonkers of “the grotesque kind, and  faced with flints and irregular stones. ”

Now, of course,  Wrighte did not invent this style of architecture, it was almost certainly driven by publishers who saw a ready market for such stuff.  As Eileen Harris noted in her British Architectural Books and Writers “the variety of slight and often frivolous designs offered in these books could fairly quickly and easily be made by any one with a basic knowledge of architecture, some skill as a draughtsman, and a fertile imagination.”

That meant that publishers  “employed minor architects or young, inexperienced hopefuls – some utterly unknown apart from their books – who cannot have regarded their creations as anything more than pot-boilers.” They didnt have to be original just shameless at borrowing and adapting other people’s work.  In Wrighte’s case it was from Charles Over’s Ornamental Architecture (1758), Edwards and Darly’s Chinese Designs (1754), Paul Decker’s Gothic Architecture (1759) and William Chambers’s Kew (1763). I’ll leave you to flick through those and find some of his sources but because his engravings were much more interesting and detailed – and grotesque –  his book had much more impact.  So while we may know nothing. of his biography  Grotesque Architecture will surely serve as a source of rural amusement as he intended for a long time to come.